The general manager of the Guam Visitors' Bureau, a destination marketing organization, faces the challenge of running the island's tourism industry. There are strong interest groups, who have structured the competitive field in Guam, and the island's mature industry faces ever-increasing competition from rival destinations. The general manager must formulate a realistic strategy that acknowledges the internal and external constraints his organization faces and safeguards the competitive position of Guam.

FirstCaribbean International Bank was the new banking entity created from the combination of the Caribbean operations of two foreign banks, Barclays Bank plc of the United Kingdom and headquarters in London, England and CIBC - formally the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce - of Canada and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. A marketing team was formed with the specific responsibility of developing the marketing function and the brand strategy, as well as guiding the branding process of the new entity. The head of the marketing team has a number of concerns: Would geography, history and commercial practices support or mitigate against a single, centralized marketing strategy for the entire region, what should the new brand be and how should it be articulated, should the new brand reflect one or both of the heritage banks or should the new brand break with the past and reflect a totally new identity, and how quickly could the new brand be rolled out? This case may be taught on a stand alone basis or in combination with any of the five additional Cross-Enterprise cases that deal with various functional issues associated with the eventual merger: Human Resources - Harmonization of Compensation and Benefits for FirstCaribbean, product 9B04C053; Information Systems - Information Systems at FirstCaribbean: Choosing a Standard Operating Environment, product 9B04E032; General Management - CIBC-Barclays: Should Their Caribbean Operations Be Merged?, product 9B04M067; Accounting and Finance - CIBC-Barclays: Accounting For Their Merger, product 9B04B022; FirstCaribbean International Bank: The Marketing and Branding Challenges for a Start-up, product 9B05A012; and technical note - Note on Banking in the Caribbean, product 9B05M015.

AWARD WINNING CASE - This case was one of the winning cases in the 1999 Regional Asia-Pacific Case Writing Competition. Grey China is a subsidiary of Grey Advertising, based in New York. Established in 1917, Grey Advertising offered a variety of marketing and corporate services through its 377 branches in 88 countries, which employed 10,000 people. The case provides an overview of how an advertising agency functions, as well as illustrating timely advertising industry issues such as specialization and globalization. The CEO of Grey China must decide whether or not to launch an interactive services department to capitalize on the potential for a first mover advantage. Many marketing managers in Hong Kong and China were unaware of how interactive marketing could be integrated into their marketing communications programs. Grey China had the daunting task of building primary market demand for interactive marketing communications.

The group product manager for Xbox Canada was working on his marketing plan for the product's second year in the Canadian market. Xbox is a video game console and trailed Sony's PlayStation 2 in the marketplace. The group product manager must present his plan at the Microsoft Global Briefing. He knew the gaming market was turbulent and fickle and he wondered what he might do as an encore to the Xbox launch program.

Two young university graduates evaluate the possibility of introducing a new room reservation system for tourists in Greece, replacing some of the unreliable existing methods. Recent improvements in the telecommunications grid and the emergence of several Internet service providers across Greece, coupled with existing hardware and software technology, paved the way to a window of opportunity for their Ikaros Project, a collection of transactional interactive networked kiosks. The kiosks would allow customers to obtain real-time information on hotel room availability and make their reservations. Convinced that the system would be accepted by the tourists, there were still many considerations to be researched and resolved: acceptance of the system by the hoteliers, connection costs, system capacity, pricing and the system architecture.

The Blue Bulls rugby team enjoyed a fanatical fan base and had been performing well in local and international competitions recently. As a leading South African rugby franchise, the Blue Bulls faced a social and political environment that emphasized racial transformation. An up-and-coming Afrikaans musician had become best-seller with his De La Rey song, which was about a Boer soldier who calls on General De La Rey to lead the Afrikaner people to victory in the second South Africa War between the Boer Republic and colonial Britain. Given the emotive theme of the song and the response by some to view it as a reassertion of Afrikaner nationalism, the song had attracted significant media coverage and controversy. As part of the entertainment at the Vodacom Super 14 rugby game between Western Force and the Vodacom Blue Bulls, De La Rey was played over the stadium loudspeakers. This delighted most of the mainly White Afrikaans spectators. As the evening progressed, the acting head of the Blue Bulls Company, the organization that managed the Blue Bulls rugby team and the Loftus Versveld stadium, received a number of complaints from supporters about the playing of the De La Rey song and thus decided to remove the song from the official stadium playlist. By Monday morning, a media frenzy had erupted about this decision and the acting head was faced with a number of options of how to respond. The case is written for a first-year MBA module and is designed to explore the following themes: 1) race, identity and language as consumer behaviour variables 2) spectator, supporter and consumer processes within sports marketing 3) sports brand development and sponsorship relationships.

A venture fund has approached an entrepreneur to sell one of its poorly performing holdings, or if there is no reasonable sale opportunity, turn the company around. He finds no acceptable offers for the company. He searches to find more information on how buyers purchase and use the product, which is a software system for police and courts to lay charges and manage them across the court process. The case illustrates the leverage available from understanding customer budgeting and buying processes, and fitting the service to meet the mind of the customer.

Dexit is a new electronic payment system that offers a convenient alternative to cash for small-value retail transactions. The chief executive officer is faced with some critical target market and marketing mix decisions as she prepares for launch. The situation is complicated by the fact that action is needed on two fronts: Dexit must not only recruit end-consumers to use the service, it also has to convince merchants to install the payment terminals. Since paying with cash is free, the company will need to persuade both groups that the added convenience of Dexit justifies a transaction fee. Although the concept appears to have good potential, the recent test market failures of two similar offerings suggest that success is far from guaranteed. The case reinforces the importance of solid consumer analysis when selecting a target market, demonstrates the concept of value to the customer, and provides a basis for discussing push versus pull marketing strategies.

Citibank Argentina faces a number of questions on how to develop its future strategy in its credit card business. Citibank is the most successful foreign bank in Argentina and is number one in the country's credit card business. To defend its position as leader, Citibank has to maintain its role as driver of the business, since aggressive competition from American Express and others can be expected. However, intensifying competition involves increasing pressure on margins, and the need to tap new (and less secure) market segments to achieve the growth target.

Critical Mass was a highly successful Internet marketing services firm with a blue chip client list. The rapidly changing Internet environment demanded continuous innovation and an exceptional level of creativity from the Technology Group. The company invested substantial resources in a creative-friendly physical environment and organized an array of activities intended to keep creativity bubbling. The company was ready to embark on a significant expansion in its customer base and management had decided to review and reassess these activities to determine if they were having the desired effect and if corrective changes were required.

In its first two years as a direct response retail bank in Canada, ING Bank of Canada attracted more than 160,000 customers and assets of Cdn$1.6 billion. Several other direct banks have entered the marketplace with similar services and the management team needs to consider the company's next strategic move. The team must decide whether to recommend an alliance that would place ING automated banking machines in Canadian Tire stores nationwide. This case is a supplement to ING Bank of Canada (A), product 9A99A010.

The management team at ING Bank of Canada was preparing to launch Canada's first discount bank. Initially, the bank planned to serve its customers using mail and telephone. Later, it planned to supplement the telephone banking service with an interactive voice response system and an Internet-based service. ING hoped to attract customers by offering significantly higher interest rates on its savings products than any of its competitors. There was some skepticism about the viability of the proposed business model. At the time of the case, the president and CEO of ING Bank was reviewing the proposed launch strategy.

Blue Mountain Resorts had been driving its business with a service quality program for several years, which the vice-president of human resources was responsible for coordinating. With a new ski season underway, and the critical Christmas season approaching, he wanted to continue progress of the program by introducing a new set of initiatives. He had recently gathered together a team of Blue Mountain Resort managers, from a variety of different areas in the company, to identify opportunities to improve service quality. The group provided three proposals that he felt warranted consideration. At the upcoming executive team meeting, he would be expected to set the priorities for the coming year and recommend what action, if any, should be taken for each. He had to decide which programs made the most sense for immediate action and which ones required additional study and analysis. Each of the proposals affected different parts of the organization, so he also needed to be concerned about who else in the company should be involved in further evaluation and implementation.

The Ontario Machinery Ring is a cooperative set up to perform a matchmaking service for farmers who want to have custom work done and farmers who want to do custom work. This concept is widespread in Europe but has not been tried in North America. The general manager of the organization has set up a prototype operation and is looking at expansion opportunities. Expansion will take more funds than are available and the general manager has sought financial assistance from the provincial Ministry of Agriculture and Food. Before committing funds to this project, the ministry requires marketing research to measure demand for the machinery ring concept. Supplemental cases, Ontario Machinery Ring (B) and (C), product 9B04A022 and 9B04A023 look at questionnaire development and data analysis.

The general manager of Ontario Machinery Ring - a cooperative developed to match farmers with someone to do custom work - must develop a marketing research proposal and design a questionnaire to determine the demand of machinery ring concept. This is a supplement to Ontario Machinery Ring (A) - Problem Definition, product 9B04A021.

The general manager of Ontario Machinery Ring is looking at expansion opportunities but limited funding requires him to obtain financial assistance from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. The ministry requires an assessment of the demand for this marketing concept before they will provide any funding. He had developed a questionnaire and now must analyze the data that has been collected to prepare the marketing research proposal. This is a supplement to Ontario Machinery Ring (A) - Problem Definition, product 9B04A021. Data file is available, product 7B04A023.

The vice-president of marketing at Arts & Crafts was reflecting on the company's extremely successful year in the music business. New artists had been added to the company's roster, experiments with digital releases and marketing campaigns had been successful, and plenty of international licensing opportunities were emerging. In addition, one of the company's artists, Leslie Feist, had received multiple music awards. On the other hand, the music industry was facing some difficulties and most analysts predicted nothing but doom and gloom. The vice-president of marketing had to consider the future strategy of Arts & Crafts while considering the overall health of the industry.

The director of Lubricants business for Pennzoil-Quaker State Canada is faced with a significant challenge - overcoming the apathy that many consumers had about changing their motor oil. Increasing the frequency of oil changes and improving retention of its customers was critical for the financial success of the company. In response to this challenge, the director had to make a recommendation on adoption and implementation of a major new promotional program. The program, called One-to-One, was designed to create closer relationships among consumers, retailers and Pennzoil-Quaker State. Making the program work required active cooperation from the retail installers who actually performed the oil changes. The supplement Pennzoil-Quaker State Canada: The One-To-One Decision (B), product 9B04A011, focuses on the 240-day field trial of the program.

This supplement to Pennzoil-Quaker State Canada: The One-To-One Decision (A), product 9B04A010 looks at the 240-day field trail of a program designed to build loyalty among consumers, and to increase frequency of oil changes.

The National Hockey League's collective bargaining agreement was due to expire on September 15, 2004. As executive director of the National Hockey League Players' Association, it is Bob Goodenow's responsibility to negotiate a new agreement in the players' best interests. The NHL has demanded that a salary cap be imposed in the next collective bargaining agreement and has threatened a lockout by owners if the players' association does not agree. The NHL has implemented a successful communications strategy and gained public support. Goodenow must decide how to proceed in order to gain a favorable position going into the negotiations and retain the loyalty of the fans on which the sport depends.

WestJet is a regional airline service. During the early afternoon of September 11, 2001, the director of customer service is on her way to an emergency meeting. For the first time ever, all civilian airline flights across North American airspace are suspended. WestJet guests and employees are stranded across the country without any indication as to when flights will resume. In addition, there are grounded employees that are dealing with a tremendous amount of anxiety; the airline industry is tightly knit and rumors run rampant across airlines. The director of customer service must decide what should be done first.

A North America-based representative of a major European airline has just received a letter from an unhappy customer detailing a very large number of service problems. A quick check had revealed that this premium-paying customer's complaints were all valid. A meeting is planned with the customer. Before this, the airline representative must decide (A) what to say in response, and (B) what, if any, compensation should be offered. Internally, there was a need (C) to resolve what their organization should learn from this experience, both from a subsidiary and parent company perspective, and the implications on their participation in the Crown Alliance. This case raises many important questions regarding service recovery, communications, and non-equity alliances.

This supplement to the Euro-Air (A) case, 9A99M015, serves to contrast what competitor airlines do with respect to service recovery and communication. The larger issue relates to our ability to use these two short cases to explore the nature and limitations of certain non-equity international alliances.

Anduro Marketing is a Canadian company that sells technical services to companies wanting to improve their search engine website rankings. Though small, Anduro has attracted several major clients in both Canada and the United States, and expects steady profitability and growth. Anduro believes it can generate substantial additional profit by developing and selling a suite of software products that automate its technical service offerings. Anduro's managers must decide whether Anduro is better off staying with its current safe and profitable strategy or if Anduro should instead pursue a riskier but potentially more profitable software sales model. Several tough questions must be answered to determine whether the risk is worth the reward. The Anduro case provides an interesting description of an Internet technical/marketing services business and contrasts this with software sales.

An engineer for Wind to Energy has led the creation of the North American division of a German start-up company that designs wind-energy electric power generation units - wind turbines. The engineer and his fellow engineers have licensed the technology to a small-share assembler of wind turbines and are about to receive their first payment from this firm. As they look ahead, they see opportunities for revenue in possibly supplying spare parts to wind farms, or even operating their own wind farm. The challenge is to focus this start-up company.

Logitech is an international company that designs and manufactures computer peripheral products. The retail pointing devices unit director is thinking about the development of the next generation of his device, the Logitech io Digital Pen. The digital pen is about to be launched in less than two months, and he is still unsure which features were valuable to potential users, who these potential users were and for which applications the digital pen could be used.

The owners of Country Paws Boarding Inc., a large boarding facility for dogs, customarily took every opportunity to get to know each dog's likes, dislikes, behaviors and tendencies in order to minimize separation trauma. This required ongoing dialog with each dog owner and observation of each canine. The owners were always eager to chat with those boarding their dogs at Country Paws in the hope of identifying potential new services and improving existing offerings. In response to dog owner expectations for canine socialization and recreation, new offering being considered was the community playground. They must determine how this offering would fit with their current line of services and what other services were worth considering.

As a manufacturer and distributor of agriculture equipment, as well as a broad range of construction and forestry equipment, Deere & Company had a lot riding on the smooth flow of its logistics function. FedEx Logistics provided out-sourced transportation services to 11 Deere facilities across North America. But with each of Deer's individual business units responsible for its own logistics activities, and with each unit negotiating a separate service agreement with the FedEx facility, costs and services tended to differ across the units. Deere's manager of logistics design asked a summer intern student to evaluate the company's logistics agreement with FedEx, with a view to identifying opportunities for standardizing costs and services across the business units. The logistics manager is expecting a report containing details of each operation's work flow and cost information, as well as some recommendations for updating Deere's out-sourcing arrangements with FedEx Logistics.

The vice-president - RBC Banking business & information solutions must develop an implementation plan for the bank's new paperless transaction system. The new system will reduce costs in proof processing and will facilitate the role of the customer service representatives, allowing the CSRs to shift from transactional to sales oriented roles. The system must be implemented across the company within 12 months. Challenges concerning the timing of installation, sequence of rollout, scope management and prioritization must be addressed.

The founder and chief executive officer of Global Source Healthcare was struggling with how to allocate sales resources among acquiring new accounts, penetrating existing accounts and up-selling existing accounts. Global Source Healthcare provided domestic and international staffing services to healthcare facilities. The company had been operational for a year and growth had been considerably slower than expected. What made this decision especially important was that the healthcare staffing market was experiencing a substantial downturn. Consolidation was occurring in the industry. Given the limited sales and financial resources of the company, this decision was critical to ensure the very survival of Global Source. Other issues that may be raised include understanding the sales strategy in the business and marketing strategy, motivating a sales force in a difficult, limited-resource environment, and understanding the trade-off between the length of the sales cycle and the size of the potential account.

The acquisition of A.T. Kearney Ltd., an international management consulting firm, by Electronic Data Systems (EDS), an information systems company, raised many issues. Among these was the issue of how to leverage the merger in terms of providing strategic consulting and information systems solutions to clients. Should the two firms cross-sell each other's services? Should A.T. Kearney call on existing EDS clients and vice-versa? Should the two firms work together to secure new clients? The case focuses on the chairman of A.T. Kearney Ltd. in Canada as he prepares to deal with the above issue. Once this issue has been worked through, there is an opportunity to deal with sales management issues arising from this decision. For example, if cross-selling is to be encouraged, what incentive scheme might be appropriate? The purpose of the case is to show how sales management decisions must be driven by marketing strategy and the desired customer interface that marketing strategy implies.

From a strategic perspective, the Bank of Montreal, a major Canadian bank, has committed to entering the 'virtual banking' marketplace in Canada. There is also the potential to launch later in the USA and Mexico. They plan to do this in a preemptive fashion to gain first mover advantage. This means no extensive pilots and a short time to launch. The decision makers are charged with developing a complete launch strategy. They have two years of tentative ideas to work with, but a number of major decisions on product line, pricing, communications, salesforce, etc. are still to be made. The purpose of the case is to introduce students to the entire scope of marketing decisions to be made in such a situation, including fundamental decisions around targeting and positioning. It also drives students to make decisions in the face of incomplete information and short time horizons. To date, the case has been successfully used to set the stage for marketing management courses, and to kick off marketing management modules in executive development programs. (A nine-minute video can be purchased with this case, video 7A98A025.)

Global Healthcare Exchange Canada is a business-to-business exchange that connects hospitals and their major suppliers through an electronic procurement process. Founded as a subsidiary of its global parent, the exchange has become the leading health-care exchange in the country, but it is still far short of break-even. It must develop a compelling value proposition if it is going to drive adoption among hospitals and suppliers to the target levels. To do so, it must overcome considerable inertia among hospitals that are often very reluctant to change from frequently inefficient purchasing processes. Although there are major benefits to be realized from automating supply chain operations in the industry, the adoption decision process among hospitals is highly complex, but very idiosyncratic. In confronting these challenges, the exchange must also re-examine its own business model, in particular its pricing strategy for both suppliers and hospitals.

Casino gaming companies such as MGM Mirage, Harrah's and Park Place Entertainment, in addition to their traditional land-based casino properties, must consider the potential impact of Internet gambling on their existing operations. It appears that several Internet gaming companies have been quite successful and that the global market potential could be significant. Each of the United States gaming companies has taken very conservative approaches to Internet gaming in an effort to maintain their long-standing relationships with their respective state gaming authority. However, non-traditional casino companies have developed off-shore Internet gaming operations to circumvent traditional land-based gaming regulations. Going forward, traditional gaming companies will need to consider the possible legalization of Internet gaming on a large scale and how they would respond.

American Airlines is a widely cited leader in the development and implementation of yield management practices. This case is based on a training exercise used at American Airlines to introduce managers to their yield management system. Participants are given the responsibility for a single flight from Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas to Miami, Florida and are required to make a series of sequential booking decisions in real time. The objective of the exercise is to maximize total revenue for the flight, after taking into account no-shows and penalties. De-briefing following the exercise provides an opportunity to discuss both the strategic and tactical issues that arise when applying yield management systems in service firms. The case is designed for use in a service management elective course or in a service operations course and is intended to expose students to yield management by giving them hands-on experience managing bookings for a flight. The game takes approximately 50 minutes to play, leaving approximately 30 minutes for class discussion. Ideally, a supplemental reading dealing with yield management should be assigned with the case in order to provide background theory on yield management and to describe the complexities of a yield management system.

The Mongolian Grill is a concept restaurant faced with a decision of whether to expand its capacity. The manager's objective is to optimize the restaurant's profitability without compromising the dining experience of its customers. This case is intended to introduce students to operations issues in a service environment (as opposed to a manufacturing environment). The concept of line balancing is central to the case. The case is also intended to explore capacity expansion issues and to demonstrate how expansion options can affect capacity, profitability and service quality. The case requires students to conduct a quantitative analysis of capacity and profitability while evaluating possible negative effects on service quality.

Northwest Mutual Funds is a boutique mutual funds company that differentiates itself on a high level of customer service. The case describes how the company is considering marketing its funds directly to retail investors. Thus far, the company has marketed its fund only to the financial planners that make up the channel. The case illustrates channel issues, and helps students discuss how products must be differentiated from competitors' products in the channel.

The president of a national placement agency is preparing to make a final pitch to sign Greyhound Canada as a client. Greyhound wants to reposition its brand as a mainstream travel option, particularly for suburban commuters, and needs cost-effective ways to get its message to consumers. The company views product placement as a viable tool for building brand awareness, but worries about losing control over its brand image. Even more serious are concerns about the absence of reliable metrics to assess the overall effectiveness of product placement. The case covers fundamentals of product placement, particularly with respect to strengths and weaknesses, and provides an excellent basis for discussing its value as part of an overall marketing communications strategy.

The marketing manager for a hockey team has been told by senior management that revenues for the next season must increase or the franchise will be sold. The previous year's high-budget advertising campaign did not bring in the single-ticket sales results he expected. A database of past ticket holders is available and the question arises how to use this database. Using pivot tables, and recency, frequency and monetary value analyses, he must determine how to increase the return on the marketing investment. An Excel spreadsheet, product 7B02A022, is also available.

As cable operators across Europe go digital, they will require a means of remotely upgrading the applications software on subscribers' digital set-top boxes, using some kind of loader software to do so. Intellibyte Inc., a small Canadian software firm, has developed the only remote loader software that currently meets the specifications of the European Cable Communications Association. However, it must sell the software to manufacturers of set-top boxes before cable operators can use it. The competition is no more than two years behind. The president must decide among several pricing and positioning alternatives for intellectual property products in a complex industry.

E-Loan is a leading online mortgage provider. Its success is built on its key strategies of building a nationally recognized brand and providing superior customer service. Despite its strong market standing, the company was anxious to reposition itself as a provider of all consumer loans, not solely a mortgage lender. In order to meet this goal, E-Loan's president identified four strategic challenges: leveraging technology to provide further efficiencies, expanding its selection of products to meet consumer needs, continuing to build a strong brand presence and expanding internationally. The company's co-founder recognized that one of the greatest challenges would be to maintain the company's successful culture that they had worked so carefully to establish, while at the same time, achieving the broader goals.

iVillage.com was a successful Web site that served as a point of entry to numerous sites (or channels) targeted to a female audience. With a solid strategic vision and a network structure that provided consistency and control of the customer experience, the founders were rewarded by the site's favorable online presence. The company's business strategy relied on creating revenue through sponsorship and advertising. As the marketing industry had identified women as their single largest target category, iVillage.com had little difficulty in successfully pursuing innovative sponsorships and creative advertising. The pursuit for women's buying power also meant, however, that iVillage.com faced competition -- for both audience numbers and advertising dollars -- from numerous online and offline businesses. More women were accessing information online, driving the demand for more sophisticated Web sites. At the same time, iVillage.com needed to capture the audience that was currently offline and those who were about to move online. The founders must determine how to proceed in the face of increased competition, and how to achieve profitability.

Group Retirement Services (GRS) is a division of London Life Insurance Company in London, Ontario. The vice president of GRS implemented the balanced scorecard in his division in 1994. Since that time, the industry and London Life have experienced significant change. Although the scorecard was not yet complete (after three years), the real issue here is whether the scorecard has been useful to GRS and whether the scorecard could be improved to assist the department in the future.